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SIL International’s innovative Bloom software eases the process of bookmaking so that more people can participate – if you can type on a computer, you can create a book in Bloom.

Bloom users can create an original text or select a template, called a “shell book,” and insert culturally appropriate pictures and local translations of text. The books created can then be saved as a PDF and distributed in printed or electronic form. It is also possible to use Bloom to create EPUBs and “talking books.”

SIL has been developing and using Bloom since 2011. For the All Children Reading Enabling Writers competition, SIL added features to let Bloom users create decodable texts and leveled readers. Literacy specialists can create “Reader Templates” that help writers create texts for specific languages that are decodable at various stages of learning and conform to leveling guidelines.

SIL International has also created 31 Bloom Training videos. The videos are narrated in English but subtitles are currently available in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Bangla, English, and Swahili. For example, Why Bloom is a 10-minute video which explains the role Bloom software can play in aiding literacy development. It also gives an overview of the key features of Bloom.

Click on the screenshot above to watch this video on YouTube. Once the video is playing, click on the gear icon to enable subtitles and/or to change the subtitle language.

Bloom has been launched on Internet-connected computers more than 100,000 times in 117 countries, with a high of more than 12,000 times in one month alone.

Of those 117 countries, Bloom was launched more than 1,000 times in 10 different countries (USA, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Cameroon, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Bangladesh, Nigeria) and more than 300 times in an additional 10 countries (India, Kenya, Mexico, Australia, Senegal, Chad, Nepal, China, Burkina Faso, Mali).

Bloomlibrary.org currently contains 1,211 books (as of August 29, 2017) and new books are being added all the time. The library currently contains books in 86 languages.

The USAID-funded Enabling Writers Workshop Program with awardees in Bangladesh, Haiti, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, and the Philippines will result in about 3,000 books being added to Bloomlibrary.org in 15 languages.

SIL LEAD conducts Bloom training workshops as one of the services it offers. A Bloom training workshop can be held on its own or in combination with a SynPhony training workshop.